Dawn of War 2

Caelwyn

Post subject: Dawn of War 2

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:37 pm

Master Sergeant

Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 1:40 amPosts: 1408Location: Trapped in a hell of his own devising

I'll post a longer review (maybe) once i've finished the campaign and played a bit more skirmish. First impressions though are the game really delivers on the promise relic made. I am really enjoying the campaign. It takes what they made in Dark Crusade to the next level, and although it is only space marines that have a campaign i'm hoping this does well enough that they'll consider making it for the other armies.

For campaigns you run back and forth across a few different worlds defending against ongoing and growing threats. You only have 4 units and what looks like the option to get a dreadnought later on. Each of the units upgrades and unlocks abilities along 4 paths (special, melee, range and health). This includes your commander. There is different equipment you can equip them with, weapons, armour and accessories (like melta bombs and tarantula turrets).

The game itself plays quite differently, you have smaller units and reinforcing requires specific conditions. This means you have to work a lot more to keep your units alive, you can't just throw them in willy nilly. The commanders also become a lot more important in battles and losing yours can make a big difference.

Base building no longer occurs. You only have one building, upgrading which allows more elite troops to be built. Upgrading troops occurs on a unit by unit basis (which adds to the desire to keep each unit alive). Units (especially commanders) also gain experience and thus get slightly stronger the more enemy they kill.

The graphics follow the same style as relics previous DoW games and are quite spectacular. One reviewer has even said he'd like speed option so he can slow the gameplay down and watch the special kills. There are a lot more cut scenes than in the previous games and they've gone to a lot of effort to make them more polished along with the graphics.

Well, i'm going back to playing it, its a great game and I might post more later.

I'd love to be playing alongside you, but right now it keeps crashing on my PC. Not the game's fault, as far as I can tell...I was trying to run it below specs, so I'm surprised I even got to PLAY part of the first mission!

Once I get my new PC built in a month or two, I'll get a chance to take another swing at it. But I'm completely loving the changes, that's for sure!

Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 1:40 amPosts: 1408Location: Trapped in a hell of his own devising

Well, I'd buy the game, but its up to each person. I'm not sure its worth the full $50 if you don't play online regularly. I don't but i bought it anyway, i guess i'm just that kind of person though. Steam might be a bit cheaper and you need steam to register it anyway.

My recommendation: its a great game, one of the best i've bought in the last year. However it comes down to how much time one spends playing computer games (especially online vs) compared to (in this case) how much time you spend playing tabletops. If you liked relic's other dawn of wars i'd definitely buy it.